Monday, August 29, 2011

Demo-lition Derby: Fetal Injury

Fetal InjuryAin’t No Party Like a Donner PartyHas it come to this? With our meme-infested culture I should have known it was only a matter of time before we got to full on Nyan cat –core. I don’t know if I like it, if I really need it or if they're even being serious anymore, but dammit I just can’t get the meowing vocals of “Bite it You Scum” out of my brain. It’s the sort of screwball move you’d expect the Melvins to pull only all dolled up in its grindcore finest instead.
It’s an especially odd foil to Fetal Injury’s otherwise traditional grind and twisted humor. Or maybe just another example of their askew sense of humor. If you feared that irreverent, blackened joking got flushed down the toilet like a dead goldfish with the bloated, drug-addled corpse of Seth Putnam (ha ha, you’re dead [too soon?]), Fetal Injury’s absurdist grind might be the curative to your doldrums.
But the band that gives us “Ode to White Castle” and “Freebasing Coke is Good for You” is actually far more on the ball than they deliberately lead you to believe. There’s an impressive array of musical styles on display on Ain’t No Party Like a Donner Party and each one is pulled off with aplomb from the cowtipping “Rawhide” rip of opener “Steers and Queers straight through the spot on Ramones tribute of “Blitzkrieg Grind.” Even the aforementioned “Freebasing Coke is Good For You” slips and slides with a surf rock shuffle that would do Dick Dale proud. Or at least Wadge. Everything is nicely balanced in the mix and the performance has a nice raw edge without sacrificing clarity. This is exactly the album I had hoped Bastards would deliver. You can join the party here.